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Monday, September 30, 2013

I chose my own husband. No one but the two of us had any hand in meeting each other, falling in love, and getting married. My parents did not know him or know of him through family or friend connections. Arranged marriages are not a part of our cultural heritage. Of course, it turns out that had they known him, they would definitely have picked him because he fits in with my family like a hand in a glove. And I'm glad of that but also glad that I was able to choose to my own spouse without help. But what of arranged marriages? I know how my own relationship grew and changed but how does a relationship come into being when the bride and groom have only met each other fleetingly before their marriage? How does love between these two strangers grow? Can it grow? Simi K. Rao's novel An Incurable Insanity looks at one arranged marriage and how the characters in it come together and find love with the stranger they married.

Ruhi is a young, attractive Indian woman who has finally agreed to an arranged marriage that is very pleasing to her parents. One look at Shaan's photograph and she accepts the match. He seems a good person and she is filled with hope for the future. But on their wedding night, he tells her that he married her because his dying grandfather wished to see him settled and he is in love with the woman back home in California with whom he's been having an affair. Unfortunately, this woman, Des, is married and so there was no question of his marrying her and he now has no intention of consummating his marriage to Ruhi because of his strong feelings. He offers her an out of their sham marriage but she bargains with him to stay married for a few months and for him to take her to the US with him, hoping all the while that she can make their marriage a real one and avoid hurting her parents, who have really fallen for their new son-in-law.

Alone in the states, Ruhi does all she can to be a comfortable, traditional wife to Shaan but soon realizes that this sort of passivity isn't going to win his heart. He is merely kind to her in the way that one does not mistreat furniture, nor notice it much. And so Ruhi decides that it is time to let her real, generally exuberant and occasionally moody and volatile personality shine through in her effort to win him. This starts an extended sparring match with Shaan and Ruhi vacillating between caring for each other and being incredibly angry with each other. Neither of them seems able to share their inner thoughts with the other and so misunderstanding after misunderstanding ensues. And the misunderstandings are complicated by the people and circumstances surrounding them in their life: the happily married Indian couple friends of Shaan's who both fall for Ruhi immediately, a local elderly woman determined to help these two uncover and share their love with each other, Shaan's toxic mistress, the strictures of Shaan's job and new work project, as well as all the adjustments Ruhi has to make in learning to live in another country.

The novel is told from both Shaan and Ruhi's perspectives and there are sections marked out by italics where the dialogue is an internal one rather than between the two main characters. Generally the internal musings were in complete contradiction to whatever the character happened to actually be saying aloud. This let the reader know what the character was really thinking but was ultimately a very frustrating way of handling it. And Shaan and Ruhi themselves were incredibly tiring characters, constantly flipping back and forth between love and hate, consideration for the other and desire to wound. Their about faces could come from one sentence to the next, making for a tough reading experience and making it rather hard to feel any sympathy towards either one of them, trapped in their seemingly endless misunderstanding. By naming it insanity, Rao has indeed described it well, unfortunately, this sort of insanity made for an unpleasantly maddening and completely exasperating reading experience for me.

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
The Fountain of St. James Court or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman by Sena Jeter Naslund

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Happy Rock by Matthews Simmons
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
The Purchase by Linda Spalding
Love Potion Number Ten by Betsy Woodman
Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
Thursday Next in First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Faking It by Cora Carmack
An Incurable Insanity by Simi K. Rao

Friday, September 27, 2013

Families are tricky. They can bring out the best in a person or the worst. And when there are tensions and secrets, a family gathering seems fraught with peril. Children often revert to the roles expected of them even if they are long since adults and they still see situations from the perspective of the child they used to be. In Katharine Britton's new novel, Little Island, the Little family is coming together for a weekend at Grace and Gar's small island inn in order to hold a memorial service for Grace's late mother. In the course of this weekend, they will discover long buried secrets, face ongoing hurts, and learn a little bit about themselves and each other as adults.

Joy, the oldest Little child, has just sent her son off to college with her husband and she's consumed with the worry of what her life will look like now. She still holds resentments towards her younger sister Tamar, who seems to have everything handed to her, and has always felt on the fringes of Tamar and twin Roger's lives. She doesn't even have the distinction of being the oldest child in the family, having had an older sister who died in infancy. In so many ways, her personality has been shaped by her always feeling like the runner-up. Tamar is the intense twin. She is bringing her own young twin daughters to the memorial for her grandmother but she's terrified she's failing with them and that she is no mother to speak of, lacking a necessary bond with the girls, and she's prickly about any suggestions or advice. She is rigid and selfish in many ways, still using and manipulating people the way she always has. Her twin Roger is fighting a lot of demons, aimlessness and alcoholism among them. Even so, he comes across as the happy go lucky, fun twin, the one who generally lightens a room. He has some pie in the sky dreams and one more realistic dream but the more realistic one is the one he's most afraid of reaching for. Each of these three are coming home to the island to honor their grandmother.

Meanwhile, their mother, Grace, is trying to create the memorial service that she thinks her mother most wanted and is worried she's falling far short. She's also worried about the way that husband Gar is slowing down and starting to be forgetful. He putters around doing many of the things he's always done allowing Grace to have charge of their family life. This complicated dynamic will come into play in various ways as the weekend unfolds because not only is the weekend the memorial service for Joan, it is also the twentieth anniversary of a senseless tragedy that changed all of the Littles forever. And finally long buried truths, both about Joan and about the events of that terrible night twenty years prior, will come to light and will set them all on the road to healing.

The novel is told mostly in the third person omniscient but Joy's sections are narrated in the first person giving the reader a greater insight into her closely held personal hurts, her general feelings about the crossroads in life she's standing at, and about what drives her interactions with her sister and brother. Her sections feel more immediate than those of the other characters because of this difference in narration. But the difference also contributes to an bit of an unbalanced feeling to the story as a whole. While it was easy to feel sorry for this terrifically dysfunctional family as a unit, the characters individually were not all that sympathetic. Tamar in particular was fairly hateful, causing the reader to root against her in every way, not an intentional result I suspect. The tension grows and tightens as the novel progresses and the reader starts to guess the damaging secrets but the resolution of both are too quickly, easily, and almost unbelievably achieved. And once the secrets are revealed, the entire tone of the novel changes as if the release makes everything a-okay with no lingering after affects. An interesting, if not always entirely successful, look at grief, loyalty, family dynamics, and mothering.

Amazon says this about the book: After a getaway in gorgeous rural Vermont—its mountains ablaze in autumnal glory, its Main Streets quaint and welcoming—Ellen Stimson and her family make up their minds even before they get back to St. Louis: “We’re moving to Vermont!” The reality, they quickly learn, is a little muddier than they'd imagined, but, happily, worth all the trouble.

In self-deprecating and hilarious fashion, Mud Season chronicles Stimson’s transition from city life to rickety Vermont farmhouse. When she decides she wants to own and operate the old-fashioned village store in idyllic Dorset, pop. 2,036, one of the oldest continually operating country stores in the country, she learns the hard way that “improvements” are not always welcomed warmly by folks who like things just fine the way they’d always been. She dreams of patrons streaming in for fresh-made sandwiches and an old-timey candy counter, but she learns they’re boycotting the store. Why? “The bread,” they tell her, “you moved the bread from where it used to be.” Can the citified newcomer turn the tide of mistrust before she ruins the business altogether?

Follow the author to her wit’s end and back, through her full immersion into rural life—swapping high heels for muck boots; raising chickens and sheep; fighting off skunks, foxes, and bears; and making a few friends and allies in a tiny town steeped in history, local tradition, and that dyed-in-the-wool Vermont “character.”

Monday, September 23, 2013

What do you know of Islam? Specifically, what do you know about young Muslim women in the United States? Do you picture them only as conservative women covered by burkas or do you see them as modern and varied as young women of other faiths? Mostly the media chooses to show us examples of only the most extreme and fanatical or the most conservative Muslims in this country so there's little to no frame of reference for non-Muslims when trying to find commonalities between themselves and the Muslim community. Jennifer Zobair's new novel, Painted Hands, not only presents moderate and balanced insights into the American Muslim community, it also highlights the many ways in which young professional women closing in on thirty all face similar challenges in their personal and professional lives, regardless of religion.

Amra and Zainab have been best friends since childhood. They are a part of the same Muslim community in Boston and they have shared their hopes and dreams for years. Now adults, both of them are successful, professional women who face challenges both universal to young American women of all stripes and some unique to their ethnic heritage. Amra is a lawyer on the partner track at her law firm. She works ridiculous hours in pursuit of her professional goal, the culmination of years of top notch education and her ambition to prove herself. Zainab is a rising political star in the campaign of outspoken and controversial Republican Senatorial candidate, Eleanor Winthrop-Smith and has drawn the attention and ire of conservative radio shock jock, Charles Holland. Zainab is far less traditional than Amra in her identification as a Muslim woman but both of them are trying to build a happy and successful life for themselves as Muslim women in the US.

The novel is told from four different points of view, Amra's, Zainab's, Charles (Chase) Holland's, and Amra's white, Midwestern colleague/friend Hayden's. As Amra grapples with her desire to balance a more traditional marriage and motherhood to her former childhood crush with her pursuit of a partnership in her firm, Zainab must repeatedly bail her boss out of tight spots and decide how she feels being made the face of Muslim America, especially in an America so charged with distrust of, misinformation about, and fear of Muslims. Chase publically stirs up animosity against Muslims and Zainab in particular on his radio show even as he is intrigued by the warm and fascinating woman that she is when he meets her privately while Hayden is lost and searching for love, acceptance, and meaning in her life which she thinks she's found when she converts to Islam and falls in with an extremely judgmental, conservative fundamentalist group.

The characters must look inside themselves to find the things that matter most to them. Is it relationship? Is it work? Is it principles? And whichever it is, what kinds of sacrifices will they make to achieve the life they want to lead? That the three women are or become Muslim in post 9/11 American adds another layer of conflict to their decisions. Zobair has done a good job showing young women examining their lives, the attitudes around them, and the roadblocks they face as women and as Muslims. The characters are quite likable and they offer a different perspective on a community so often vilified for the actions of a few radicals. Even close friends Amra and Zainab are, at heart, quite different in their views and their choices. That there are romantic threads for each of them, Amra falling in love with the man her parents would have chosen for her themselves; Zainab and Chase's contentious, evolving relationship; and Hayden's affair with the man for whom she converts followed by her calm acceptance of an arranged marriage, lightens the story line and reminds the reader just how difficult it can be to balance all the parts of life while still trying to determine a path true to yourself. Since childhood, at weddings in the community, Amra and Zainab have been painting their dearest hopes and wishes on their hands in henna. How those wishes have evolved over time as they grow and change is a major thread in the novel. And when each of the three women is pressed, by events out of her control, to make decisions about which wishes to pursue, they rise to the occasion beautifully.

Zobair doesn't shy away from presenting several different views of Islam and the life those who practice it are called to lead. She is respectful and understanding of arguments on both sides of the political spectrum, those condemning the conservative practice of Islam and those seeking to liberalize it, and shows the ways in which both sides can push too far. There are liberal, feminist Muslims here as well as fervent, unquestioningly conservative Muslims. And in portraying so many of the gradations in between the two positions, she has shown the diversity and difference within what is so often considered a monolithic group and culture. The chapters are short, flipping the focus from one character to another, and the reading is easy and quick. This is a fascinating look into the lives and choices of several successful women with respect to all aspects of their lives, including the religion that defines them, whether they choose it to or whether American culture has thrust that upon them.

For more information about Jennifer Zobair and the book, check out her website, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

I have been crazy busy lately. All of my volunteer positions seem to need 100% of my time all at the same time this time of year. And heaven knows there's only one 100% to give so a lot of things have had to be cobbled together on a smaller percentage and my reading and reviewing has fallen by the wayside. Add in the fact that it is still back to school season (multiple curriculum nights for example) and you have a decent clue why my time is stretched so thin. I didn't even manage to post this last week, not that there was much at all to post, honestly. So this is actually two weeks' worth. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Swimming in the Moon by Pamela Schoenewaldt
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
I Am Venus by Barbara Mujica
Silver by Andrew Motion
Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair
Faking It by Cora Carmack

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
The Eight by Katherine Neville
Little Island by Katharine Britton

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Happy Rock by Matthews Simmons
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
The Purchase by Linda Spalding
Love Potion Number Ten by Betsy Woodman
Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
Thursday Next in First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume
Paperboy by Tony Macaulay
Silver by Andrew Motion
Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair
Faking It by Cora Carmack

I didn't manage to post my mailbox last week so this is two weeks' worth. Even so, I was once again spoiled with great books and a beautiful pair of earrings too. Sometimes it is great to be me. ;-) This past two weeks' mailbox arrivals:

These beauties came from my fantastic friend Kathryn. She's not only a fellow reader but she makes gorgeous jewelry and sells it in her etsy shop. I so miss living by her so I could browse her shelves and her jewels!

When a family comes together for a funeral, they must face an old tragedy and rise above it. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Notorious Spinks Talks Books as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

I have two older children so I probably should have just skipped curriculum night at the middle school altogether. But the poor third child gets short shrift in so many ways that I just couldn't bring myself to completely ditch the evening. But I should have. Because it made me angry.

The first stop of the evening was a presentation by the TD teacher. She explained, as I already knew from my older children passing through this middle school, that Language Arts classes are inclusive but that children who need differentiation do receive it within the classroom setting. Since this is not new to me, I was only paying minimal attention at this point. But I managed to hear her loud and clear when she said that the goal with exceptional readers is to move them from reading mainly fiction to reading non-fiction because it is "real" and "true." My hackles not only went up, they practically jumped off my body in an all out revolt. Did she really just say that non-fiction was more valuable than fiction? Why yes, it appeared that she did. Result on this mother? Immediate loss of respect for ignorant teacher.

Now, I could tear down non-fiction in making the argument that it is no better than fiction but I happen to like non-fiction. I typically read less of it than fiction but I have spent many enjoyable hours submerged in captivating non-fiction. Far more hours than said teacher, if I was to venture a guess. And with these many hours behind me, I would not say that non-fiction is more important than fiction; it is not even more important to building a reader. Both of these types of writing are valuable to readers. And frankly, I thought we'd come past this very eighteenth century argument about the frivolousness of novels.

So let me make a couple arguments for fiction rather than against non-fiction. First, fiction can be every bit as true and real as any non-fiction book. Fiction is not limited to actual events so it can capture a universality of human nature or behavior incredibly beautifully. If someone accuses you of being a Scrooge, you know exactly what they mean. Ebenezer Scrooge was only a character but he certainly represents a specific and very real type, whether as a whole or just as a portion of a personality. Waiting for Godot's Vladimir and Estragon are ridiculously absurd and slightly uncomfortable specifically because they tap into a real truth about human behavior and the human condition. They are, of course, no more real in the sense of existing physically, than Ebenezer Scrooge, but they hold a mirror up to us that reflects a truth as much as any non-fiction narrative.

Second, it is more than possible to learn as much from fiction as it is from non-fiction. In fact, fiction needs to be every bit as accurate as non-fiction in many ways. Good authors will have thoroughly researched all aspects of their plot, from character dialect to appropriate behavior to tiny details about place and more. If they don't, they will be certain to hear from a reader who knows better and who will call them on sloppiness. They tend to have a plethora of amazing facts woven into the framework of their stories which readers may not even recognize they are learning about as they read along. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is merely fiction but it is one of the best representations of the politics of Russia in that time period, the conditions of the serfs, and the prevailing feelings of the ruling class ever written. And even though this could come off as dull and dry as any textbook, Tolstoy's mastery of language and the complexity of his overarching plot make this truly engaging reading with a large dose of educational information to boot.

Third, in all of my reading, I'm pretty certain that reading fiction rather than non-fiction has increased my vocabulary spectacularly. Sure, non-fiction can use all of the same words that fiction does, but in my experience, those words tend to be stoppers in non-fiction (ie requiring an immediate trip to the dictionary) whereas in fiction, it is easy to pick up the meaning by osmosis and to have it become a part of your own vocabulary almost unconsciously. The only downfall to expanding your language base in this way, and it is true of either fiction or non-fiction, is the embarrassment you feel when you first use the word, the meaning of which you understand completely, and mispronounce it because you have heretofore only ever seen it in writing. Now I don't know if I've read the wrong non-fiction and more complex writings exist out there (aside from specialized or academic writings) but the vocabulary section of both the SAT and GRE were quite easy for me and that ease has to be chalked up almost entirely to reading fiction since I used to read non-fiction only under great duress.
And my vocabulary continues to expand even though I read far more fiction than non-fiction.

Now, like I said, I'm not here to denigrate or dismiss non-fiction like the TD teacher did for fiction but I have to say that the examples she gave of magazines and newspapers to read for increased truth did not give me any warm fuzzies. I won't name names but she mentioned several where the quality of writing is often questionable. It is also not exactly objective. Is truth subjective? Maybe. But maybe not. What about the adage that history is written by the victors? There's obviously more than one side to any "real" and "true" story. How often have we heard about a family member disputing an author's memoir? Seems to be strangely often. Have we had award winning writers accused of plagiarism or inventing things? I certainly have. Most narrative non-fiction now carries a CYA disclaimer at the beginning stating that the book presents things as best as the author recalls or has found. If truth didn't have so many permutations, we wouldn't need scholars and authors to keep revisiting any subject. The first book written about any person, battle, situation, etc. would be definitive and we could brush our hands off and move onto the next subject. But, of course, this isn't true. And given that this was a school which assigned my daughter's class Three Cups of Tea as class reading one year, I am fairly certain they know all about the fluidity of truth and untruth as presented in writing and specifically in non-fiction. So to declare non-fiction better reading fodder because it is "real" and "true" simplifies things to an almost insulting level. And yet the TD teacher still made her outrageous and completely wrong comment. Worse yet, at my second stop of the night, the Language Arts teacher reiterated it. And she reiterated it without recognizing the irony of assigning three novels and no non-fiction as grade level class reading.

Why do so few people read a book after high school or once they are finished with college? I'd venture the guess that some of it's because we force so much of this "prescriptive" reading based on arbitrary and often wrong notions of the value of certain works over others. In other words, you must read this because it's good for you. Obviously this is true for both non-fiction and fiction and school is in fact about learning to read critically and geared to learning from your books, but does that mean that one type of narrative is more advanced than another? Is non-fiction really "better" than fiction and must be touted as such? Can we not let children read for enjoyment and be pleased that they are finding an escape in a book, regardless of the type? Must we push a certain type of book, implying a value judgment, simply because children are advanced readers? The argument doesn't hold up to examination anyway. If we focus a little more on individual enjoyment, which can be found in either fiction or non-fiction, rather than on saying that something like non-fiction, because it is "true" (and I use this term advisedly), is more intellectually edifying than fiction and therefore denigrating an entire wonderful swath of books, we might just find more people willing to read once they are no longer obligated to do so. And it would leave me far less angry.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Being a painter is not easy. How do you go about making a living from your talent when art is so subjective? What if you want to paint in a way not currently in vogue or if you push the bounds of what is considered decent? Although painters in the late Renaissance period had the luxury of patrons to support them in their art, they also had many strictures that artists today don't face. In Barbara Mujica's novel about Diego Velazquez, the most celebrated Spanish artist of his day, she paints a picture of the challenges and rewards of such a life and offers an answer to the riddle of who modeled for his famous and controversial nude, The Toilet of Venus.

When the novel opens, Velazquez is living in Seville with his wife Juana, daughter of his teacher and mentor, and is starting to receive recognition for his talent. He resolves to go to Madrid to court, intent on becoming a court painter and courtier in Felipe IV's decadent and bankrupt court. Amazingly, despite initial setbacks, his dreams are realized and he is soon not only the favored painter, exclusively painting the King's portraits, but also a more and more influential courtier as well. But his success isn't without personal cost. Told mainly through the first person voice of the woman brave enough to model for his nude Venus picture despite the Inquisition's many watchful eyes, the novel is not only a recounting of Velazquez's life as history records it but also a picture of the domestic life of all those under his roof. His successes and their impact on the women in the house, from pride to shame, anger to adoration, are all neatly laid out by his mystery Venus whose identity can be guessed at but which isn't revealed until the end of the novel.

As well as Velazquez's life, the novel is crammed full of historical information about King Felipe IV's court, the political machinations, the people surrounding and encouraging the king, the international and religious maneuverings, the wars and the poverty resulting from such, and the licentiousness of the nobles despite the enforced morality of the Inquisition. But these outside influences touch Velazquez and his family very little, insulated by his position at court as he is, always continuing to draw a salary even when the court is bankrupt and so many others are going without. Instead the major influence on Velazquez is his wife and her moods. Juana is jealous and unhappy, depressed after her infant daughter's death, clinging and critical, and yet she loves her husband.

Mujica has drawn the world of 17th century Spain and the contradictions of that time and place very, very well. Her depiction of the filthy and wounded soldiers ignored, reviled, and hurried past by the wealthy and highborn is particularly effective. And she doesn't shrink from a realistic portrayal of His Most Catholic Majesty Felipe IV and his legendary appetites. She doesn't really address the Inquisition and its reverberations throughout daily life though. It is, of course, invoked as the reason that the nude must be painted in secret and must be a reference to the classical Venus rather than just a life study and our narrator is certainly worried that her identity will be uncovered and she will pay the ultimate price for posing thusly for her love but aside from the occasional reference about her worry, the Inquisition seems to be nowhere in evidence regularly. Perhaps this is because the dissolute court had the influence to keep the inquisitors at bay but then why the worry of the muse in posing for the most favored Velazquez?

The novel is really more about Velazquez the man and the times he lived in than about the scandal surrounding this famous work of art. There is a bit about his technique and the way that it evolved but overall this is a domestic novel about a courtier who was also a famous artist and whose regular life and obligations to the court dictated much of his output and its content, even to the point of making it impossible for him to find time to practice his craft. Velazquez himself is portrayed as distracted, rather unemotional, determined, and ambitious. Juana comes across as querulous and the reader finds it hard to discover sympathy for her despite her husband's infidelities, real and imagined. And in the end, the eventual revelation of the model for Venus is not a surprise as the narrator has been dropping clearer and clearer hints as she tells of the distant past. Over all, the story is an interesting one but sometimes the history sits uncomfortably heavily on a more personal, domestic tale.

For more information about Barbara Mujica and the book, check out her website, find her on Facebook, or follow here on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Amazon says this about the book: An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

When I chose this book as the first book of the summer for my summer book club, I got a little bit of push back. Apparently they are not all as enamoured of Indian-set novels as I am, but since they have ceded all choosing to me, I'd made my choice and was sticking to it. And thankfully none of them were as unhappy after reading the novel as they had been upon seeing the list. Isn't it funny though, how different our tastes are? The good news is that Manisha Jolie Amin's new novel, Dancing to the Flute, is a very engaging coming of age novel and ultimately worked well for the book club.

Kalu is a young orphan boy who lives on the street and gets by running errands for pay, scrounging for food, and accepting handouts. Despite his difficult life, he is a sweet boy who has made friends with Bal the buffalo herder, Malti a serving girl, and even acquired a patron of sorts in Ganga Ba, Malti's mistress who often finds or manufactures small tasks Kalu can do for her. In its own way, the whole village of Hastinapore looks out for him and ensures his nominal survival until he injures his foot so badly that he can no longer run the errands that gave him a purpose and a tiny measure of pride. He is hungry and in pain when he climbs a banyan tree, rolls a leaf into a flute, and blows sweet, pure music through it. Below the shady tree that morning, unbeknownst to Kalu, is a vaid, a traveling healer, who will change the path of Kalu's entire life after listening to Kalu's impromptu, entirely self-taught concert from high above in the leaves of the tree.

The vaid not only heals Kalu's infected foot but he also offers to take Kalu to his brother, an outstanding and reclusive musician, so that Kalu can study with a master and expand his gift. So much good fortune for a small, abandoned boy who had had faced such adversity already. And so Kalu goes off to the vaid's brother Guruji's home far away to learn the fundamentals of Indian music, specifically the raag. But as Kalu grows into manhood amongst new friends, he keeps his old friends, those who supported and loved him as an urchin, in his heart. He learns music to better his life as much for them as for himself.

This is a touching book about loyalty, friendship, and love. Written in sections meant to reflect the structure of the Indian raag, Amin has captured the story of a coming of age, the tragedies and the triumphs, the growth, the spirit, and the perseverance that make up music and life. Her depiction of rural India is beautifully rendered and very descriptive and her knowledge of music is extensive. Like the raag the story imitates, there is a slow build in the beginning, a joining in of the melody, an increase in tension, and a final breath of completion. Kalu's story contains all the power and strength of the emotion contained in his entire being. Amin's narrative is skilled and evocative and even those who don't understand music will be transported to Kalu's India and the true heart of a small boy forever loyal to those he loves.

Friday, September 13, 2013

October is National Reading Group Month and in honor of that, each year the Women's National Book Association (the WNBA without dunking) chooses a list of books that will make for "Great Group Reads." The books are well written and thoughtful. And they deal with topics and themes which should generate good and lengthy discussions in your group. Every year when I read some of the books submitted, I am pleased to discover wonderful books I might not have otherwise picked up or even heard of without their inclusion on the list. In the interest of full disclosure for those who aren't long time readers of my blog, I am the President of the Charlotte chapter and also a member of the panel which selects the books.

This year's list has just been officially released so here it is with links to any I've reviewed so far:

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Do you know when your family came to this country? What did they do when they got here? How did their life lead to yours? I don't know this sort of information about most of my family although I have relatives with interests in genealogy so they may have a lot more knowledge about my family's past than I do. In the few cases I do know about, my ancestors, like so many other people from their home countries came over here in search of a better life. What their lives looked like once they arrived and whether their dreams were fulfilled, I may never know. In Pamela Schoenewaldt's new novel Swimming in the Moon, she follows one family, a mother and daughter from Naples, as they persevere and build a new life in America.

Lucia and her young mother Teresa are house servants in Italy. They are generally protected from the cruelties of the count by the countess who often asks Teresa, who possesses an angelic voice, to sing to her to alleviate her headaches. But Teresa has mood swings and suffers fits of rage and when the vicious count allows his physician to torture her in the name of treatment, Lucia is also seized for treatment. But Teresa defends her daughter, attacking the count and the two of them must flee the villa. With the help of the majordomo, Paolo, and money from Contessa Elisabetta, they escape to America, ready to forge a new life in their new country.

Once settled in Cleveland in a boarding house run by Paolo's cousin, Lucia has the opportunity to go to school, learn English, and work towards a high school diploma while Teresa works as a chocolate dipper and then finds her way into vaudeville singing as the Naples Nightingale. And for a while they seem to be adjusting and even coming closer to fulfilling some of their dreams. But an immigrant's life is not easy and they face injustice and hardship even as they persevere. Lucia finds dear friends who support her in her American life but Teresa slips and her mental instability grows until finally, Lucia, who only enjoyed a short and dreamlike time at Hiram College, is called back to Cleveland to care for the mother who has had a complete breakdown and can no longer be left unsupervised.

Although Lucia's education has made it possible for her to avoid factory work herself, she is still a young woman of the immigrant community and she sees the hardship and injustice that so many others have to endure in local factories and workshops: low wages, grueling work hours and forced overtime, inappropriate advances by bosses, random fines and firings, and dangerous working conditions. And she sees the ways in which the workers are exploited because of their poverty and their inability to come together as one large group, which only results in their remaining downtrodden and abused. Unable to ignore the plight of her friends and neighbors, she becomes involved with the union and helps to organize a strike in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Her formal education may have come to an end with her mother's escalating mental illness but Lucia finds her passion in working with the union and organizing the strike.

Lucia is a smart, compassionate, and determined character. She endures everything that life throws at her, the horrors and the heartbreaks, and yet she never gives up, adjusting her dreams to reality, always moving forward no matter how painful. Schoenewaldt has done a marvelous job drawing the reality of life for immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century in an industrial city like Cleveland. Her portrayal of labor and unions and the driving forces for and against is well done. And in addition to the historical aspect of the novel, she has written a touching novel of mother daughter love and caring. Lucia's devotion and her big heart are in evidence in all of her relationships but never more so than when she cares lovingly for her diminished mother. Adding in the tragedy of mental illness and the barbaric treatment available for it at the time is perhaps one strand too many in this historical fiction but it does add one more trouble, and really the driving trouble, to Lucia's story so I'm not certain how it could have been left out. Over all this is a quick and fascinating look at a piece of our nation's history that should not yet have faded from our collective consciousness.

For more information about Pamela Schoenewaldt and the book, check out her website or find her on Facebook. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Amazon says this about the book: The memoir of a young diplomat’s wife who must reinvent her dream of living in Paris—one dish at a time

When journalist Ann Mah’s diplomat husband is given a three-year assignment in Paris, Ann is overjoyed. A lifelong foodie and Francophile, she immediately begins plotting gastronomic adventures à deux. Then her husband is called away to Iraq on a year-long post—alone. Suddenly, Ann’s vision of a romantic sojourn in the City of Light is turned upside down.

So, not unlike another diplomatic wife, Julia Child, Ann must find a life for herself in a new city. Journeying through Paris and the surrounding regions of France, Ann combats her loneliness by seeking out the perfect pain au chocolat and learning the way the andouillette sausage is really made. She explores the history and taste of everything from boeuf Bourguignon to soupe au pistou to the crispiest of buckwheat crepes. And somewhere between Paris and the south of France, she uncovers a few of life’s truths.

Like Sarah Turnbull’s Almost French and Julie Powell’s New York Times bestseller Julie and Julia, Mastering the Art of French Eating is interwoven with the lively characters Ann meets and the traditional recipes she samples. Both funny and intelligent, this is a story about love—of food, family, and France.

Monday, September 9, 2013

I know, I know. The need to review section is getting completely out of hand. And I know this is going to bite me in the butt but sometimes I just can't put keister in the chair in front of the computer no matter how I negotiate with myself. Maybe this week'll be better. This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Hungry by Darlene Barnes
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Better Than Fiction edited by Don George
Swimming in the Moon by Pamela Schoenewaldt
Paperboy by Tony Macauley
I Am Venus by Barbara Mujica

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Dancing to the Flute by Manisha Jolie Amin
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Happy Rock by Matthews Simmons
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
The Purchase by Linda Spalding
Love Potion Number Ten by Betsy Woodman
Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
Thursday Next in First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy
House of Miracles by Ulrica Hume

A reworking of Austen's novel written by Trollope? Does it get any better than this?!

If you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Notorious Spinks Talks Books as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

When we were in college, my now husband invited me over to his house for a homemade dinner. Bless his sweet soul, he thought he was going to crack open some Ragu and pour it over spaghetti noodles and call it good. I wasn't as particular about food then as I am now but I still knew that a jar of spaghetti sauce needed a boost, even if it was a very minor and limited boost, so I showed him how to brown ground beef to turn it into a meat sauce instead of marinara. I'm pretty certain he decided to marry me at that very moment. I may also have insisted on a salad, which could explain why it took a couple more years to propose. This is the man whose other nickname in his house that year was Chef Boy R Dave since the sum total of his cooking skills consisted of cracking open a can and nuking the contents. He was certainly accustomed to eating less than healthily and his fraternity did not have an on-site cook (if they didn't live off campus, they ate in the school dining halls). Even though the concept of a fraternity chef is completely foreign to my husband's and my college experience, I was still fascinated by the idea of Darlene Barnes' memoir of her six years cooking for between fifty and eighty Alpha Sig brothers on the University of Washington campus.

Barnes was facing an empty nest with both of her sons off at college and a move from Texas to Washington for her husband's job when she applied for the job with the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. She didn't have a fancy culinary degree and she knew that fraternity cook was not exactly a sought after job in the food industry but she had cooked for a wealthy Dallas family and worked in the kitchen in a small, uninspiring restaurant and the thought of cooking for a house full of guys used to mac and cheese from a box, pizza, and assorted frozen entrees intrigued and challenged her. For her interview, she showed up carrying her grandmother's pot roast not knowing exactly what to expect of the house or the guys in the house.
She got the job.

Subtitled What Eighty Ravenous Guys Taught Me About Life, Love & the Power of Good Food, this memoir is not an expose into an Animal House like Greek system but a loving and thoughtful look at the varied guys who came through Barnes' kitchen in the six years she spent with the Alpha Sigs and how she changed their perceptions of what is worth putting into your body as sustinence. She weaves stories of her own childhood and previous culinary experiences, her grandparents' farm, the Dallas family who insisted on out of season produce and then complained that it was tasteless, and more throughout her over-arching chronicle of cooking fresh meals for the guys, arguing with her vendors about the need for locally sourced foods, and becoming emotionally attached to many of the wonderful young men who passed through her kitchen.

Barnes captures the frustrations of working in a fraternity house, from the completely inadequate kitchen and utensils to the sometimes filthy and disgusting aftermath of weekend parties (she only worked during the week). She doesn't gloss over the aggravations of finding crusted food on the wall and pledges too lazy to clean it off or the state of the "women's" bathroom she uses. But she also speaks of the joys she encountered, the reasons she inevitably came back year after year despite her annual plan to quit when summer rolled around. The guys looked to her for tough love, emotional support in the face of grief, occasional advice, snappy comebacks, and darned good meals. She was a vital part of the house, full of sass and verve and a heart big enough to encompass this crazy group of men on the verge of adulthood.

The memoir highlights what is best about the slow food movement and serves as a love letter to her guys. She teaches the members of the fraternity about the importance of good, local food prepared well and she learns a lot about herself, positive and negative, through her interactions with each pledge class. She chronicles some hilariously funny situations and some that are heartbreakingly tragic. She admits her failures and her vanities and doesn't try to sugar coat what can sometimes come off as abrasive. She just lays it full out honestly and without embellishment. A different, very quick, and engaging read and it has some delicious sounding recipes tucked at the end of several of the chapters. And by the end of the book you'll probably wish, as I do, that Darlene Barnes, with her oversized personality and her definite opinions on food, would cook for you, or at least teach you to cook like her.

For more information about Darlene Barnes and the book, check out her website, read her previous site, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Amazon says this about the book: From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight. So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives. Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow. Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are. With all the hallmarks of Jhumpa Lahiri's achingly poignant, exquisitely empathetic story-telling, this is her most devastating work of fiction to date.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Mary Balogh is one of the giants of the romance world. She has written dozens of novels and short stories in the genre. In her latest Regency-set series, The Survivors' Club series of books, she has chosen to focus on men (and one woman) who were wounded in the war, who carry physical and mental scars but who are fighters and survivors, and who are finding their path in life and the partner who is happy to walk it with them. She is giving her damaged heroes the happy endings they deserve. In the second novel of the series, The Arrangement, the Survivor on whom the action centers is Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh.

In his first battle of the war at all of seventeen years old, Vincent was not outwardly marked but he was blinded and deafened. He recovered his hearing over time but his sight remained permanently gone. When the novel opens, he has adjusted to this disability in many ways but he does still allow his family, grandmother, mother, and married sisters, to dictate his life to a large extent. During his convalescence from his injury, he inherited a viscountcy, its attending estate, and a fortune from his uncle, making him a good prospective husband for any woman willing to have a blind husband. And his female relations have decided that it is time for him to marry and have a wife to take care of him. But Vincent doesn't want to have a wife who settles for him and he doesn't want a wife that he hasn't chosen for himself so he takes his childhood best friend and valet, Martin, and flees his home and the matchmaking therein.

Eventually he and Martin end up in the small village where Vincent grew up as son of the local schoolmaster before ascending to the title of viscount. He's hoping for quiet in which to grow in his newly formed conviction that he needs, at the age of 23, to take his life into his own hands, having ceded control to his family so long ago. But even in Barton Coombs, he faces a wedding trap when a local baron and his wife scheme to force Vincent into marrying their beautiful but spoiled daughter, Henrietta. Henrietta's cousin Miss Sophia Fry lives with her maternal relations on sufferance. Her father was a rake and a gambler who was killed in a duel and his daughter has been passed from unloving family to unloving family ever since. She has cultivated a quiet, unassuming invisibility and a reputation as a homely mouse in an effort to be as innocuous in her relatives' homes as possible. But when she realizes her aunt and uncle's intentions, she foils their plan to have Vincent compromise Henrietta, saving him from their trap. She is promptly turned out of doors with only a meager bag of belongings and enough money to exactly pay for a coach ticket to London and nothing more.

When Vincent hears what Sophia's one instance of considered rebellion has caused, he goes to her and offers her marriage and an arrangement whereby they will live together for one year after which time, if there is no heir, they can each go their separate ways and live the solitary lives of which they've dreamed. She is reluctant to burden him but having no real other options, ultimately says yes. And so begins their marriage, one of thoughtfulness, caring, and contentedness. Sophie explores every safe option she can to give Vincent greater and greater freedoms and independence despite his blindness and he in turn introduces her to his friends and family whose acceptance and friendship help to give her a measure of self-esteem and confidence. Sophie knows that she is no beauty, often described as ugly or as looking like a boy, but Vincent finds her to be perfectly to his liking, assuring her that he sees the beauty she carries inside her even if he'll never see what she looks like physically.

The romance here is not an all-consuming passion but rather, as would be more believable given the "marriage of convenience" aspect of their union, a friendship and a growing, enduring love without the fireworks of conflict. Each of them is given a gift in the other and while they start their marriage thinking that they will coexist quietly for the agreed upon year, each of them comes to the conclusion that they no longer want to be held to the year. But they do not share this growing realization and both overhear conversations that convince them that the other one still wants to be able to part amicably and live apart once the time is up. And therein lies the sole friction in their placid and even keeled life.

Balogh knows her era and she draws it beautifully. And the novel itself is well-written. The characters are pleasant and appealing and their kindness and caring towards each other is lovely. But somehow this novel lacks a spark. It is a nice novel populated by nice people who have hurdles to overcome, certainly: Vincent's dependence because of his blindness and Sophie's feelings of insignificance and shyness. But they feel like an old married couple long before the blush should have been off the rose. They will likely forever be serene and contented. For those who want a different sort of romance, a tranquil and unruffled one where the characters' focus is on emotional growth and a deep understanding of their partner's hidden hurts, this is just the novel.

For more information about Mary Balogh and the book, check out her website or find her on Facebook. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Monday, September 2, 2013

As the father of modern day psychoanalysis, Freud is such a large part of our cultural knowledge that it is almost hard to think of him as a real person. He developed the theory of the Oedipus complex, the theory of psychosexual development (penis envy and castration anxiety), he touted the efficacy of the "talking cure," and gave us the entertaining phrase "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," among other things. And yet he was not just the revered, larger than life neurologist and psychoanalyst of history, but was a real person with a family, wife, children, and a possible adulterous relationship with his single sister-in-law, Minna Bernays. It is this relationship that Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman bring to life in their engaging historical novel, Freud's Mistress.

Minna is an intelligent, curious, and over-educated lady's companion. When she seeks medical assistance for a lowly young kitchen maid in her mistress' house without permission, she is let go. While she found the job stifling and demeaning, it gave her a modicum of independence outside of marriage. But with her dismissal, she finds herself unemployed, unmarried, and completely destitute, giving her no option but to impose on her married sister. Having just had her sixth baby, her older sister, Martha, is married to Sigmund Freud, a professor and neurologist who works with troubled patients. They accept Minna into their modest home and she settles in to help Martha with the difficult and mundane business of raising children.

It has been many years since Martha cared to listen to her husband's theories about the mind or to pay him much attention, focused more on running the household and the blissful oblivion of opium. Minna, on the other hand, is captivated by the chance to exercise her brain after many years of only exchanging letters with the brilliant Dr. Freud. She is fascinated by his emerging theories, including those that the establishment finds perverse or unspeakable. She is not put off by his assertion that all problems stem from unacknowledged psychosexual aberations, in fact she is enthralled by the idea, even if she doesn't agree in its entirety. Her attraction to his brain and the challenges he presents quickly becomes an attraction to him, a dangerous proposition given her knowledge of the unhappy inner workings of his life and marriage to her sister. For Freud, it is appealing to have his sister-in-law worshipping him and stimulating his mind. He introduces her to medicinal cocaine and slowly seduces her, first intellectually (although never as his equal) and then physically, without any remorse for his infidelity or for the potential damage to her relationship with her sister.

Minna tries to fight her obsessive love for her sister's husband, struggling with a terrible guilt for the way in which she is betraying Martha, but unable to escape Freud's magnetic pull. She has few life options available to her as a gentlewoman of little means in fin de siècle Vienna and at 29, she is getting to an age where marriage will no longer be an option even should she desire it. So it is no surprise that she finds it exhilarating, intoxicating even, to be appreciated for her agile intelligence. She can only do so much to resist Freud's advances despite the heartache it promises and the potential it carries to destroy so many people about whom she cares deeply.

Mack and Kaufman have drawn Minna as a caring and thoughtful character, trapped by her own circumstances and the limited times in which she lives. She agonizes over her growing feelings for Freud and determines to do the right thing for her sister and the children; yet she is unable to escape the pull of her heart or the flattering attentions of her brother-in-law. Freud as a character is far less appealing than Minna. He is self-absorbed and rigid, certain that a relationship with Minna is not wrong since he and Martha are living a life of celibacy and sex, is, of course, necessary for a fully functioning life. He twists his own theories and beliefs to excuse and approve of what he wants, dragging Minna with him. He is sometimes dismissive and hostile to her, choosing to ignore her deeper feelings towards him, and in the end treating her as if she doesn't deserve even the common courtesy of cancelling their assignations when he has something more important to do. Martha Freud is not a terribly interesting character, constructing her life as suits her, often using her sister as an unpaid nanny or servant, alternately languishing in bed or acting as a martinet. She rarely makes an effort (to be kind, amenable, or grateful, to be anything really) and as a result, it is hard to understand Minna's loyalty to Martha.

Based on probable historical truth, Mack and Kaufman have done a wonderful job capturing Vienna of the time and the professional difficulties Freud faced with his controversial and "lewd" theories that ran so counter to the establishment's ideas. They've portrayed the often stultifying life choices available to smart women through Minna's dismal experiences, showing that even her affair with Freud was not a freedom but another shackle. The lonely life and feeling of imposing on family that faced spinsters of the time was incredibly well done. Because the novel is narrated from Minna's perspective, her character is complete and realistic. Freud, on the other hand, remains a rather unpleasant enigma and there will be more than one occasion where the reader wonders how and why Minna fell in love with him and remained so for so long. Mack and Kaufman have taken into consideration the scant historical evidence, from Carl Jung's early and unsubstantiated assertion that the affair happened to a recently discovered hotel guest book entry that appears to confirm Jung's statement and have drawn a fictionalized story that carries the seeds of an explosive scandal. But, as is evident from the historical information, that scandal never leaked out, if in fact it happened, and so the novel, remaining true to what we do in fact know, was left with an anticlimactic feel over all. A slow novel of secrets, guilt, and repressed emotion, it winds down to a quiet and unassuming end, in many ways mirroring much of Minna Bernays' life. Fans of historical fiction and those interested in the man behind the lionized Freud we read about in psychology classes will find this an interesting and worthwhile read.

For more information about Karen Mack, Jennifer Kaufman, and the book, check out their website or find them on Facebook. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

Dancing to the Flute by Manisha Jolie Amin
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Happy Rock by Matthews Simmons
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
The Purchase by Linda Spalding
Love Potion Number Ten by Betsy Woodman
Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt
Royal Bridesmaids by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley, and Loretta Chase
Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole
Thursday Next in First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
Topsy by Michael Daly
Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Billy Budd and Other Tales by Herman Melville
Let Him Go by Larry Watson
Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman
The Arrangement by Mary Balogh
A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
Boleto by Alyson Hagy

About Me

A voracious reader, fledgling runner, and full time kiddie chauffeur.
If anyone out there wants to send me books for review (oh please don't fro me in that briar patch!), you can contact me at whitreidsmama (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you do write me there, put the blog name in the subject line or I'm liable to send the unread message to spam. My book review policy can be found here.